Chasing Sailors

Vancouver's Kathryn Mussallem has taken salty photographs of American sailors at play for the last seven years. Her more subdued images of Canadian sailors at work are part of a group show at the Canadian War Museum.

When Kathryn Mussallem is asked what she does for a living, she saucily replies: “I chase sailors.” The Vancouver photo-artist has been doggedly giving chase for seven years now, building the cheekily titled series Hey Sailor! New in Town? while also teaching at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

The series got its start when Mussallem visited various American coastal cities and noticed uniformed sailors roaming around, wearing neckerchiefs, bell-bottoms and “a little Dixie-cup hat.” Like walking clichés from 1940s Hollywood movies, they tended to chase women, party hard and get into fights. But they were also very contemporary Americans who wore their patriotism on their sleeves. Mussallem felt compelled to capture them in photographs, especially their raucous behaviour during shore leave.

The result is a rowdy, testosterone-drenched body of work that has been exhibited in several countries. It was recently enlarged with a tamer group of images of Canadian sailors working, rather than partying, aboard the HMCS Calgary during a one-week voyage from San Diego, California, to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Many of the Canadian photos are contemplative portraits of individual sailors. Mussallem says they are different than their American counterparts in that they see the Navy as a job rather than an exercise in patriotism.

Mark Thompson, “Hard Rain,” 2017

Some of Mussallem’s Canadian photographs are on view until April 2 in a group show at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. Titled The Canadian Forces Artists Program – Group 7, the exhibition includes the work of eight artists who signed on to the program in 2014 and 2015. Each artist was allowed to spend a week to 10 days with a military unit. Locations varied from Kuwait to the Arctic. The show includes textiles, photography, video, painting and, most stunning of all, glass art from Ottawa’s Mark Thompson. His Hard Rain is a mesmerizing installation of 15 flashing, glass bombs seemingly hurtling to earth.

AY Jackson, "Houses of Ypres," 1917

These works are not stereotypical war or military art. That can be found in the more traditional show, Witness, at the Military Museums in Calgary. Another Canadian War Museum project, it continues until May 27 and contains First World War battlefield scenes by such painters as Frederick Varley, Arthur Lismer, A.Y. Jackson and David Milne.

Maskull Lasserre, "Safe," 2013

Back in Ottawa, there has been talk of touring Group 7. The museum may purchase some works, just like Safe, a clever 2013 sculpture by Vancouver artist Maskull Lasserre that sits in a foyer outside the Group 7 exhibition. Twice a participant in the Canadian Forces Artists Program, Lasserre took a real 1940s safe for keeping valuables and turned it into a cosy container to hide a soldier from gunfire.

One can only wonder what the late Lord Beaverbrook, who started Canada’s war art collection during the First World War, would think of these latest works. Whatever the case, the museum is planning at least two more biennials of contemporary art. ■

Group 7 runs until April 2, 2018 at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.